


veritatem sol et luna

by gremlins-came-and-got-me (Scared_Beings_in_the_Dark)



Series: meum sol et luna [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Solar Eclipse Flash Fic, Young Derek Hale, Young Peter Hale, precanon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-27
Updated: 2017-08-27
Packaged: 2018-12-20 11:37:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11920068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scared_Beings_in_the_Dark/pseuds/gremlins-came-and-got-me
Summary: “And what happens then?” Derek asks Uncle Peter, wide-eyed and hanging off his sister’s arm.Peter pretends to look down his nose at the eight-year-old. Derek’s always been more curious than is strictly necessary, but Peter loves him for it, even if he hides it behind disdainful sniffs and cocked eyebrows.“Then the hunters get you,” Laura says, shaking Derek off. His mouth sets in a hard line, and he trembles minutely, frightened but bravely trying to hide it.





	veritatem sol et luna

~ * ~

“And what happens then?” Derek asks Uncle Peter, wide-eyed and hanging off his sister’s arm.

Peter pretends to look down his nose at the eight-year-old. Derek’s always been more curious than is strictly necessary, but Peter loves him for it, even if he hides it behind disdainful sniffs and cocked eyebrows.

“Then the hunters get you,” Laura says, shaking Derek off. His mouth sets in a hard line, and he trembles minutely, frightened but bravely trying to hide it.

For a long moment, it looks as if Laura will apologize, but then she flounces off in search of Peter’s sister. Sixteen and already more her mother’s second than their father.

Peter does not envy her the position. He’d rather be the researcher, which is what he will train Derek to be once the boy is a little older.

Right now, he thinks he should undo the damage Laura caused.

“Here,” Peter offers, leading Derek to the settee. “Now, what Laura meant is that some hunters have an antiquated notion that werewolves are more vicious during a total solar eclipse as the moon passes between the Earth and the sun.”

Derek frowns. “Isn’t it the same distance it always is?” he asks. “Is it because it’s a new moon? But wouldn’t that mean that every new moon we should be vicious?”

Peter nods. “Most hunters are stupid.”

“Hunters are mean,” Derek corrects. And Peter had forgotten. How could he? The boy was friends with a hunter’s youngling years ago.

Derek had a sleepover with the boy and had ended up trapped in the basement, accidentally or otherwise, when the door was shut, completing a mountain ash barrier.

His little howls, ones Peter taught him to do if ever in trouble, were the only reason he was still here as they had been able to convince the sheriff that Derek had been abducted and the man had broken the barrier for them.

The hunter boy and his family had been run out of town, but Peter was waiting for the next watchers to arrive, the ones who would keep the Hales in line. As if any of them needed it.

“Yes, all hunters are mean,” Peter agrees. “Now, just because you are different from them and they don’t like it, it doesn’t mean that they are always going to attack you. Many hunters follows codes.”

“Like Mom’s code?”

Talia has a simple code, one Peter accepts willingly if a bit forced.  _Just because we are predators, it doesn’t mean we have to be killers._

Peter likes his code better.  _If you attack, we will defend._  Less chance of a hunter claiming their code was broken when the wolves respond to an attack.

“You won’t have to worry about the total solar eclipse though,” Peter says. “The next one isn’t until 2017.”

“Will the hunters be gone then?” Derek studies Peter like he’s trying to decipher if Peter will lie to him. No such luck, kid.

“As long as we exist, there will always be someone hunting us.”

“Do we hide during the eclipse?”

“Most will. Your mother would probably advise that. Less chance of a hunter actively seeking you out. If you do anything that the hunters take as overly aggressive behavior, then they will try to kill you.”

“Even children?”

Peter nods. He knows Derek is thinking of his little sister. Cora is almost two years old now. In 2017, she will be 22. Derek will be 29. Any children they might have would be single digits. And the hunters don’t care. If they see a werewolf child having a tantrum, regardless of how violent it may become, they attack with prejudice.

From birth, younglings are taught control—whether they master it or not, they are still taught it—and limited in how much their packs take them out among the humans.

And still, Peter has heard stories of families murdered when a hunter realized that the little girl crying over a denied treat had too-sharp teeth and glowing eyes.

“What do I do if the hunters find me during an eclipse?”

“During a solar eclipse? Fight. If the hunters come for you, make sure they don’t get out alive. Make sure you do.”

“Derek!” Talia says, and Derek looks to his mother. “Is Uncle Peter telling you bedtime stories again?”

Derek shakes his head, scurrying away. He pauses on the stairs and stares at Peter with his luminous eyes, a hint of beta yellow in their depths, before he continues.

“I was discussing the upcoming lunar eclipse with Laura and she wanted to know about solar eclipses,” Peter explains before Talia can ask. It’s always better to reveal one’s intentions when speaking with an alpha. They can smell the deception, no matter how small. “We did not realize that Derek was eavesdropping until he started asking questions.”

“Relax, brother, I’m not mad at you.” Talia takes Derek’s place on the settee and grips the back of Peter’s neck, claws scraping against his skin. “Derek is such an inquisitive child. He’s bound to listen when he shouldn’t and it is better to prepare him for the upcoming trials.”

She pulls away, human again. “Did you use many words he will ask about?”

Peter laughs. “Perhaps a few. I forget myself sometimes with him. He really is a brilliant child, Talia. I would hope that you would approve of and let me start his training early.”

His sister shakes her head. “No, not yet, Peter. He is still a child. Some of the things he would need to learn, I have no desire for him to know. Give him a few more years. We are at peace. We have no need of a strategist.”

“You have no need of me?” Peter jokes, but her words cut deep and he knows she can sense the hurt.

She wraps an arm around his shoulder and squeezes. “I will always need you, my brother. You are a wealth of information and a joy to behold. You will find your place soon enough, and you will help Derek find his. Do not step into shoes too large for you to fill.”

“I’m not. I won’t.”

“Good boy.”

Peter tolerates the pat to his brow, and then rises, bowing stiffly. “Good night, sister. See you on the morrow.”

“Of course, dear brother. Sleep well.”

Peter ascends the staircase slowly. He can hear Cora babbling to Laura as she reads a storybook, and quieter, Derek’s heartbeat in Peter’s room.

He finds the boy under his bed, curled around a ratty stuffed animal that may have been a wolf at one point before it was cobbled back together in a Frankenstein’s monster amalgamation.

“Derek,” Peter says reproachfully.

“I’m sorry. I just wanted to ask one more question, but Mom would have made me go to sleep before you came up.”

Peter makes a show of sitting on his bed and patting the space next to him. “Come, ask your question.”

Derek scrambles out from under the bed and onto it. Then, he spends a few minutes playing with his toy.

“Will you and Mom and Laura be around for the solar eclipse?” he finally asks.

“Now, why would you ask that?”

Derek spreads his hands, smacking the toy against Peter’s leg. “You’re so much older than me and Cora. What if the hunters get you? What if we don’t all fit in the same hiding place?” Quieter, he asks, “What if it ends up like Mikey’s basement?”

And that’s what Derek’s scared of really. A trap.

“I promise that it won’t be like that at all,” Peter says. “And your mother and Laura and I will all be there.”

Derek eyes him, sniffing pointedly, but even if he can’t lie to his alpha, Peter certainly can lie well enough to fool a child.

Satisfied, Derek hugs him and then heads off to his own bed.

Peter lies awake for long after the rest of the house is asleep, wondering if he truly is lying about who will be there in 2017, and more importantly, if the place they choose to hide in will end up being a trap.

~ * ~

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted at [my Tumblr](https://1989dreamer.tumblr.com/post/164474814905/veritatem-sol-et-luna).


End file.
